As someone who regularly walks for exercise on the Hove promenade between the Peace Statue and the Lagoon, I have become cautious about young children.

Sadly, I would be concerned about returning a little boy's football that had inadvertently come in my direction.

I would be shy of waving back to two little girls who were just having a giggly, splashy time by the sea, waving and shrieking at people passing by.

And worried as I might be about the danger to a young boy showing off with a balancing act on one of the groynes, I would not dare to warn him about the risks.

Because of the dreadful case of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, child abduction is prominent in all our minds.

At such a time of heightened emotions about the relationship between adults and children and the widespread fear of "stranger-danger", someone might watch me and draw the wrong conclusion.

Someone could make the wrong interpretation of my actions with frightening repercussions. Mob ignorance and violence are horrendous.

And I know I am not alone with my concerns. Many adults, men particularly, share my unease about the way in which the simple joy of watching children at play has become distorted in the public mind, transformed into something suspicious, even dangerous.

So poisoned has the emotional climate become, many fathers are even beginning to feel uneasy moments of self consciousness, cuddling and kissing young daughters goodnight.

Although the heartbreaking story of Holly and Jessica continues to receive saturation media coverage and scores of police are still working on the equally distressing case of missing 14-year-old Milly Dowler, the truth is that the number of children who are abducted and murdered is not increasing.

The average number in this country is about five a year.

What is on the increase, both here and even more so in America, is the intensity of the media coverage.

With such escalation, widespread discussion of all the intimate minutiae of the cases, the parental sense of near paranoia that all adult strangers are potential predators is growing proportionately.

The prolonged intimacy of the coverage is making voyeurs of us all.

The TV image of the grief- stricken mother begging for the return of her missing child now seems mandatory at the start of these dreadful events.

The police may well encourage it, yet I cannot help feeling the sick pervert who has abducted the child is only going to feel enhanced pleasure and pride in his work when he sees such a public display of agony.

It should surely be part of a child's upbringing to be able to regard adults as people to trust, people to get advice from, people to help them when in trouble.

It is deeply saddening but I doubt we will ever return to a time when the attention of adult strangers for children will be regarded as entirely harmless.